Page:History of Greece Vol II.djvu/440

 424 HISTORY OF GREECE. any assignable positive authority ; but the time assigned to th first war seems probable, while that of the second is apparently too early. Tyrtaeus authenticates both the duration of the first war, twenty years, and the eminent services rendered in it by the Spartan king Theopompus. 1 He says, moreover, speaking during the second war, " the fathers of our fathers conquered Messene ;" thus loosely indicating the relative dates of the two. The Spartans (as we learn from Isokrates, whose words date from a time when the city of Messene was only a recent founda- tion) professed to have seized the territory, partly in revenge for the impiety of the Messenians in killing their own king, the Hef a- kleid Kresphontes, whose relative had appealed to Sparta for aid, partly by sentence of the Delphian oracle. Such were the causes which had induced them first to invade the country, and they had conquered it after a struggle of twenty years. 2 The Lacedaemonian explanations, as given in Pausanias, seem for the most part to be counter-statements arranged after the time when the Messenian version, evidently the interesting and popular account, had become circulated. It has already been stated that the Lacedaemonians and Mes- senians had a joint border temple and sacrifice in honor of Arte- mis Limnatis, dating from the earliest times of their establish- ment in Peloponnesus. The site of this temple, near the upper course of the river Nedon, in the mountainous territory north-east of -Kalamata, but west of the highest ridge of Taygetus, has recently been exactly verified, and it seems in these early days 1 Tyrtseus, Fragm. 6, Gaisford. But Tyrtaeus ought not to be understood to affirm distinctly (as Pausanias, Mr. Clinton, and Miiller, all think) that Theopompus survived and put a close to the war : his language might consist with the supposition that Theopompus had been slain in the war, 'Ov Sia (Theopompus), Meao'^j'7/v etAo^ev eiipvxopov. For we surely might be authorized in saying "It was through Epa- meinondas that the Spartans were conquered and humbled ; or it was through Lord Nelson that the French fleet was destroyed in the last war," thpugh both of them perished in the accomplishment. Tyrtseus, therefore, does not contradict the assertion, that Theopompus was slain by Aristomenes, nor can he be cited as a witness to prove that Aristomenes did not live during the first Messenian war; which is the pur- pose for which Pausanias quotes him (iv. 6). Isokrates (Archidamus), Or. vi. pp. 121-122.